Elisa Villanueva Beard, 37, was promoted last week to co-chief executive officer of Teach for America, a growing nonprofit that places up-and-coming teachers in struggling schools across the country. Beard lives in Houston with her husband, Jeremy, who also works in education reform as national director of the Blueprint Schools Network, and their three young sons. She took time to speak with Houston Chronicle education reporter Jennifer Radcliffe about her new role with the organization. Excerpts of the conversation follow.

A: I feel very blessed to have the opportunity. I will say my story is one where I never set sort of myself up for frankly any of the turns that I've taken. I think it goes back to the way I was raised. My mom and her family are from Mexico and my dad is a first-generation college graduate and the things that we grew up with in my house - I have three siblings - are hard work, extreme discipline, respect for others and faith above all else. My dad used to say be the best at whatever you do.

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Q: Was attending DePauw Univeristy a big adjustment or struggle? We hear so much about college retention problems for black and Hispanic students.

A: It was like a foreign country for me, truthfully. I came from a predominately Mexican-American community. I get to DePauw and I'm the first person that looks like me that a lot of my friends had ever met who was not cleaning their toilets or washing the table after they ate a meal. So processing how people viewed me and what it meant to be me in this context was a truly transformational experience. I was under-prepared. I worked really hard for B-minuses. I did not do well my first semester, but I ended up doing really well after that, which taught me that kids can do this, they just have to have the opportunity and the access. You look at the statistics and you start to learn what's going on in various parts of our country with various groups. That's when I got turned on to Teach for America and joined the corps almost 15 years ago.

Q: How did that change your life? You went to Arizona to be a bilingual elementary teacher, right?

A: For me what I was bringing to the table was a very personal commitment. This was impacting my kids, my community, my friends, my family. This is not an abstract concept. I didn't read a book and get turned on by inequity. I invested a lot in my kids and my families. I'm committed for life to the many kids who are these kids, who have unlimited potential, such character. Their destiny ought not be determined by their ZIP code. Period. End of sentence.

Q: Now you're taking on this bigger job - what are your goals?

A: Ultimately, what we're trying to do is ensure every kid has the access and opportunity to access a great education. That every child has a choice in life - so to me that means you are academically prepared so that you can make the choices you want. If you want to go to college, if you want to go to technical school, beauty school, I don't care, but every kid should have a choice. No one can win a debate that kids from low-income communities, kids of color, cannot compete with their more affluent peers. It's non-winnable because we have hundreds of our schools in our country doing that. But in the aggregate, the statistics are still the same - 8 percent of kids growing up in low-income communities are getting college degrees. We cannot live with ourselves telling the same story. I cannot live with myself, dedicating my entire life to this and when I get to the finish life, not being at the finish line. It just isn't OK.

Q: What do you say to the people who say TFA is just a short stop for high-achieving college grads who don't know what to do in life?

A: We are part of a true social justice movement in America. When you commit to do Teach for America, you are committing to a lifetime. You are committing to understanding deeply, respecting and hopefully falling in love with your children and communities, where you will own this problem in a different way and are committed to solving it for the rest of your life from wherever you sit. I think our intentions and what we are about is building something that is going to change the world and change the county.